Just before doing a press conference after the Pelicans game
where Joe brought up the narrative that there's an entitlement that the Celtics always win and not only win but blow teams away while doing it and he doesn't think it's right, he did another interview, this time with Shank in the Globe, where he talks about embracing the expectations that the Celtics have to win this season or it will all be an epic fail and it will be his fault.
Rhode Island-raised Joe Mazzulla is still only 35 years old, and the franchise he coaches has won only one banner in his lifetime (2008), but he knows the expectations that come with coaching a team of All-Stars after recent playoffs featuring near-misses.
Everybody says the Celtics have the best team this year. And … if the Green don’t win it all, everybody probably will say it’s because their coach is too inexperienced, and they rely too much on threes, and he doesn’t call enough timeouts, and he cares too much for analytics, and that the late-game execution is lacking when the score is close.
Mazzulla knows all that, too. But his Celtics were down 17 in the second quarter to the Pelicans on Monday night, staring down a third straight loss at TD Garden following a 20-0 start at home, and fought back. Twice, erasing that deficit to take the lead in the third, then an 11-point hole early in the fourth.
With a 118-112 victory, Mazzulla’s Celtics are 36-11, best in the NBA. He’s embracing the noise and the expectations.
“Why would you want it any other way?” a relaxed Mazzulla asked during a one-on-one interview at the Celtics practice facility Monday morning. “What the [expletive] would you expect fans to feel? What should they do after the season if we don’t win? Be happy?
“Having grown up here, to me, these expectations are a compliment. It’s nothing more than an opportunity. A challenge. It’s why we do what we do. So I love it. I couldn’t imagine coaching in a situation where it didn’t matter.”
He says he's much more relaxed about this expectation this year than last year. Last year he was all over the place.
This is how life used to be in Foxborough. And at Fenway Park. Now it is life for the Boston Celtics, and Mazzulla says he’s loving it.
He certainly seems less tense and combative than he was in his first season as head coach. No doubt this is because he’s had time to acclimate to his lofty position. This certainly wasn’t the case last season when he was thrust into the job on the eve of camp after the Celtics abruptly suspended Ime Udoka for having an improper relationship with a female staffer.
Few folks knew who Mazzulla was when he took over. It was a difficult situation for all, and then the Celtics caved in the playoffs, losing three straight games at the beginning of their conference final series vs. Miami before getting waxed in a Game 7 at the Garden.
“Last year I never got to be myself because I didn’t know what I was going to be as a head coach,” said Mazzulla. “We never had a chance to establish organizational core values. Shared principles. Because of the situation, we never had an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, this is who we are.’ ”
This year, it's his team and he knows exactly who they are and they know who he is, and they all know what they are trying to be.
Everything is different now. Brad Stevens shipped Marcus Smart out of town, brought Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday to Boston, and Mazzulla has had a whole offseason to properly prepare for the 82-game NBA marathon.
“Now I know I’m really good at what I do and I trust that,” said the coach. “I’m part of a great organization and I know we’ve got a great chance to win. And I’m very comfortable because I know we have great players.
“I love my team. I love who they are as people. There’s a misconception that a lot of NBA players are difficult or hard to deal with. I think the majority of them are just good people.
“These guys, they allow me to be myself and they allow me to coach them and they get better every day. I never want to be one of those coaches that complain about their team or feel like their team isn’t set up for success. We have everything we need as far as basketball and intangibles to be a successful team.”
And he says he doesn't care about the criticism, but he doesn't ignore it either.
What’s it like when every Stephen A. Smith and Felger/Mazz voice thinks they know more about your team than you do?
“It’s [expletive] awesome,” said Mazzulla. “It’s comedic relief. Do I really expect you to wake up one day and say, ‘Joe Mazzulla’s a great coach’? I don’t expect that. And you don’t owe me anything.
“So we live in this space where we take the good with the bad. Everybody’s a little bit right in what they say. No one’s 100 percent wrong. I just laugh about it. I think it’s hysterical. I don’t give a [expletive] what other people think.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t look at it. You’ve got to know what message your guys are hearing. So one of our assistants is in charge of keeping a pulse on what’s being said. You’re not going to stop the players from seeing it, so I need to know what some of the narratives are and make sure those don’t become the narrative in our building.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/29/sports/joe-mazzulla-boston-celtics-coach-expectations/
Wonder what happened between the first interview and the second
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 788172 times)